Pocket-sized cameras have recently become extremely popular for a number of reasons, including the fact that they are of such a compact size that they can be conveniently carried in a shirt pocket or the like when the flash unit is disconnected therefrom. These cameras are of a configuration such that when held in operative (i.e. picture taking) position the housing horizontally oriented top and bottom walls are the walls thereof having the largest area. The front to back dimension of the camera is less than the width of an average shirt pocket. The top and bottom walls are relatively closely spaced to provide a very thin or shallow camera housing which enables the camera to fit within a shirt pocket without unduly stretching or bulging the pocket walls. The front vertical wall of the housing generally has horizontally spaced openings thereon on opposite sides of the vertical center line thereof, behind which openings the lens and viewfinder forming means are located, and the vertical rear wall of the housing generally contains a viewfinder window. Mounted in the top wall of the housing adjacent the front margin of the camera is a rotatable socket for receiving a multilamp flash unit which, when attached to the socket, extends upwardly therefrom and presents four flash lamp and reflector sections spaced ninety degrees apart around a common vertical axis of rotation.
A depressible trigger member is generally mounted on the top wall of the housing, and when the shutter is depressed to take a picture the forwardly facing flash lamp and reflector section is operated. A simultaneous film wind and flash unit rotating operation is effected by operating a wind means on the camera housing. In such case, one of the flash lamp and reflector sections previously facing laterally outwardly of the flash unit will be rotated into a position at the front of the flash unit where, if it is an unused flash lamp and reflector section, will be effective to take a new flash picture when the depressible trigger member is again operated.
Generally, the insertion of a flash unit into the camera automatically reduces the speed of the shutter of the camera, and removal of the flash unit will automatically restore the normally higher shutter speed. Also, when the camera user desires to take a picture under ambient light conditions, to avoid wasting a flash lamp section of the flash unit he removes the flash unit from the camera, and he reinserts the flash unit into the camera when he subsequently wants to take a flash picture. In reinserting the flash unit into the camera, he must usually first examine the flash unit to determine the position of the unused flash lamp and reflector sections so he can insert the flash unit with the proper orientation wherein the first unused section faces forwardly. He cannot determine the first unused section (so the next section to be rotated into a forward position is also unused) unless he knows the direction in which the socket rotates. While the most expensive cameras of the pocket-sized type have means for sensing whether or not the forwardly facing flash lamp section is used or unused and indicating a used forwardly facing flash lamp section by a red flag in the viewfinder, the alternation between camera operation under flash and ambient light conditions still poses a great confusion and inconvenience to many users, and frequently results in unused sections of the flash unit or, in less expensive cameras not equipped with the warning flag referred to, wasted film when flash operation is desired and the flash unit does not operate because of the presence of a used flash lamp section in firing position.
Another disadvantage of the pocket-sized cameras heretofore described provided with a multilamp flash unit socket is that, where the camera is to be carried in a shirt pocket or the like, it was necessary to remove the flash unit from the camera housing before placing the camera in the pocket because the flash unit is mounted in a side of the housing which increases the bulk of the camera along the normally thin dimension thereof to a point where the camera cannot fit into a shirt pocket unless the flash unit is removed therefrom. As was previously indicated, the removal of the flash unit from the camera creates a problem of determining the proper orientation of the flash unit upon reinsertion thereof into the camera. This position of the flash unit also places the flash unit at an angle where with color film the eyes of persons taken in close-up pictures appears red or pink. To eliminate this problem in close-up photography, an extension adapter unit is placed in the socket of the camera to space the flash unit far from the lens opening.